


happiness hides within

by plutodolohov



Series: school work [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Feels, Break Up, Canon Queer Character of Color, Denial of Feelings, Diary/Journal, Discussions of Love, Gay, Gender Confusion, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Genderfluid Character, Growing Up, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Kissing, Loneliness, Maturity, Memories, Memory Loss, Other, Past Kissing, Post-Break Up, References to Depression, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sexuality Crisis, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:21:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29182446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutodolohov/pseuds/plutodolohov
Summary: I wrote this a long time ago, and just thought I'd post it. It was a personal essay I had to write for class. I would rewrite/write an update but I no longer have the energy or will lmao
Series: school work [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145501





	happiness hides within

**[REDACTED]**  
Honors Language  
**[REDACTED]**  
7th December 2016

Love comes in all shapes and sizes, from mating season for animals to love at first sight among humans. However, not all types of love are made equally. Some are never meant to be mixed, while others go hand-in-hand. Two of the worst types of love to mix are familial love and romantic love. When one is mistaken for the other, heartbreak is sure to follow behind. I stand testament to the heartbreak it causes. It caused hours upon days upon weeks of sorrow and introspection; it lowered my levels of trust and love. However, this heartbreak, the saddest moment of my life, paved the way for the happiest moment of my life. Consequently, my life is split into two clear halves: the first half – before heartbreak - and the second half – after heartbreak.

Familial love is the love for a family member. It is also the love for someone as close as family, often a best friend. My best friend was a girl named **[REDACTED]** , whom I had known since the first grade. While we were in the eight grade, I became slightly crazy: I was obsessed with love. My craze overtook me and I began to believe **[REDACTED]** was the girl who would be my lover. I made fantasies in my head about how it would play out – all of them followed the same story line: I kissed her, she fell in love with me, we were in love. Unfortunately, my attempt at a kiss failed, and everything went downhill. In many attempts to reconcile my friendship, I made excuses, became angry, got sad, stretching the boundaries of a friend and lover and enemy until, at last, she broke all ties with me. The loss of our friendship caused a paradoxical outcome: both the saddest and happiest moment of my life.

The saddest moment of my life was when **[REDACTED]** , fed up with my excuses and my outbursts, blocked me everywhere and deleted my number. I read the text she had sent me, detailing what she was about to do, and I broke inside. School was hard, my grades were low, and I had pressure to raise my grades. I could not handle it, I could not take it anymore, I wanted to kill myself. For the next two weeks, I was the closest to depression I hope to ever be. The only thing that helped me get through this dark time was my teacher, **[REDACTED]**. She helped me get through my stupor and realize there was nothing I could do to change what had happened. I had gone too far and now I was paying the consequences. Soon I began to introspect - not in the way of self-degrading as I had before, but rather to see where I had messed up, and how to make sure it did not happen again. I viewed my thoughts and my actions as if I were God, high above, staring down and silently judging. I started to think that maybe I was not in love with **[REDACTED]** , rather with love itself. I realized that I had been immature and crazy. It took me a few weeks, but I successfully dampened my immaturity to a tolerable level and completely removed myself from my obsession. Just as a mouse uses its sense of smell to find its way through a labyrinth to get to its beloved cheese, so too did I claw and tear through my mind as an outsider, searching for any trace of anything to do with my behavior - and then I did find a piece of cheese, a reason why, but it was nothing like I was expecting.

When looking inward, I realized it was not my failed kiss that had turned her away. She had re-accepted me after that. It was much later after that. During the school year, I had posted two Snapchat posts about my sexuality and gender. **[REDACTED]** reacted to my posts with an angry outburst, asking if I was gay and gender-fluid. When she asked this, I was surprised she had forgotten. I responded, “Just to remind you, yes, yes I am (Phineas and Ferb joke lol)”. I truly believed I had told her that I identified that way. She was my best friend, and, more than that, she was my sister. I had always told everything to her. So when she whipped out at me for not telling her about these things, I lashed back. We broke up shortly after. After she was gone, I began to think, “Was I any of the things I said I was?” I was using the words like air - easily, involuntarily - but I began to wonder if there was any truth to the statements I had said. I knew I was attracted to men, not women, so I was gay; that was the easy part. The genderfluid part stumped me. What did that even mean? Google did not help, none of my friends knew, so I went instead with what I did know. Was I transgender? No, I still wanted to have a man's body. Was I into cross-dressing? For a little bit, I used that word to describe me, but then someone told me it had sexual connotations, so I discarded it. So now, I knew I was more than cross-dressing but less than transgender. What was the word for that? I went with queer at first, but then I read a book that explained what genderfluid was. Voilà! I had me, sitting in my hands. Though the gay and the genderfluid moments were spaced out, I take them as one moment; it helps drown the black, soggy weeks in between into the recesses of my memory, forgotten.

Before my heartbreak, I had always heard people tell others, “Be more mature,” “Stop being a child,” “Grow up.” I took it mildly, knowing that, yes, I have to be an adult, when I apply for jobs, and that I would one day be a dad, and yadda, yadda, yadda, but I never thought the consequences would hit me so early in life. When **[REDACTED]** broke ties with me, I learned maturity is the key to any lasting relationship. That would be the biggest difference between my old self and the new me: I am much more mature, though I still act like a child. Becoming more mature has also made me realize almost everything has more than one face. Everything is a certain way in one light, but different in another. I have become more vulnerable to attacks meant to be teenage jokes. I used to be impervious to these jokes, for I as, after all, was taking them as jokes. When it comes to jokes aimed at me, I do not take them as jokes, but as personal attacks. I used to be impervious and now I am vulnerable. The one thing that has stayed the same, however, is my ability to make a façade. Other than immediately after the break-up, I did not let any of my friends know that I was sad. I put on a façade of happiness, a thin veneer of gold to cover the blackened, charred wood within. Before my heartbreak, I had put on a façade of happiness to cover my anger, sadness, or even lethargy for I was the person whom everyone knew as the “little ball of happiness”. Nowadays, it gets harder to keep that title, but I put on the façade to keep it, for I feel that the people who know me need it to help them get through their day, and though this may sound pretentious, I think about like this: If they are happy, you are happy for them, then become happy yourself. Heartbreak changed me. I always thought I would be the one who would find heartbreak last, and yet here I am now, the first to feel it, and no one can relate. I feel utterly alone sometimes, but I just push that thought aside and focus on the potential positive future.


End file.
